WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Sgt. Declan Coady had been checking in with his family from Kuwait every hour or two after the U.S. and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, even as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab states that host U.S. armed forces.
When he didn't respond to messages Sunday, “most of us started to wonder,” Coady's father, Andrew, told The Associated Press. “Your gut starts to get a feeling.”
A drone strike at a command center in Kuwait killed 20-year-old Coady of West Des Moines, Iowa, and five other members of the U.S. Army Reserve who worked in logistics and kept troops supplied with food and equipment.
The other soldiers identified Tuesday by the Pentagon were: Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; and Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska. U.S. Army base Fort Knox, Kentucky, wrote on Facebook that the names of the other two will be released once next-of-kin notifications are complete.
The soldiers were assigned to an Army Reserve unit headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, which is temporarily operating under the 1st Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Knox.
“Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends. That’s the way it is,” President Donald Trump said of the deaths.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed the military “ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense.”
“The terms of this war will be set by us at every step,” Hegseth said Wednesday.
A mother of two who loved gardening
Amor was just days away from returning to her husband and children.
“She was almost home,” her husband, Joey Amor, said Tuesday. “You don’t go to Kuwait thinking something’s going to happen, and for her to be one of the first – it hurts.”
Amor was an avid gardener who enjoyed making salsa from the peppers and tomatoes she grew with her son, a high school senior. She also enjoyed rollerblading and bicycling with her fourth-grade daughter.
A week before the drone attack, Amor was moved off-base to a shipping container-style building that had no defenses, her husband said.
“They were in fear that the base they were on was going to get attacked and they felt it was safer in smaller groups in separate places,” he said.
She was working long shifts and he last spoke to her about two hours before she was killed. She told him she had tripped and fallen and they had been joking about that. The fun messages stopped abruptly.
“She just never responded in the morning,” he said.
Childhood friend Natalie Caruso wrote on Facebook that she was “absolutely heartbroken” about Amor's death.
“Nicole was always up for an adventure and she had such a contagious laugh!" Caruso wrote Wednesday. "Growing up next door to you was some of my fondest childhood memories!”
Coady recently told his father he had been recommended for a promotion from specialist to sergeant, a rank he received posthumously.
He was among the youngest people in his class, trained to troubleshoot military computer systems, but he impressed his instructors, Andrew Coady said Tuesday.
“He trained hard, he worked hard, his physical fitness was important to him. He loved being a soldier,” Coady said. “He was also one of the most kindest people you would ever meet, and he would do anything and everything for anyone.”
Coady was close to his family and often called, even if for only a few minutes. He was studying cybersecurity at Drake University in Des Moines, and took online classes while in Kuwait. He wanted to become an officer.
“I still don’t fully think it’s real,” his sister Keira Coady said. “I just remember all of our conversations about what he was going to do when he came back."
Khork was very patriotic and wanted to serve in the military from childhood, the U.S., his family said in a statement Tuesday.
He enlisted in the Army Reserve and joined Florida Southern College’s ROTC program.
“That commitment helped shape the course of his life and reflected the deep sense of duty that was always at the core of who he was,” his mother, Donna Burhans; father, James Khork; and stepmother, Stacey Khork; said in a statement.
Khork, who loved history, had a degree in political science.
His family described him as “the life of the party, known for his infectious spirit, generous heart, and deep care for those who served alongside him and for everyone blessed to know him.”
Abbas Jaffer posted Monday on Facebook about his friend of 16 years.
“My best friend, best man, and brother gave his life defending our country overseas,” Jaffer said.
Tietjens lived with his family in a mobile home park in the Omaha suburb of Bellevue, Nebraska. He was married with a son, according to a Facebook page.
He came from a military family and previously served alongside his father in Kuwait. When he returned home in February 2010, he was reunited with his overjoyed wife in a local church’s gym.
“I thought he was going to be the last person in, because he hates all this (hoopla),” his wife, Michelle Tietjens, told the Lincoln Journal Star at the time.
Tietjens earned a black belt in Philippine Combatives and Taekwondo and was “an instructor who gave his time, discipline, and leadership to others,” the Philippine Martial Arts Alliance said on Facebook.
On the mat and as a soldier, “he carried the same values: honor, discipline, service, and commitment to others,” the organization said.
Army Staff Sgt. Jeff Coleman said Tietjens was his mentor.
"You could call him day or night,” Coleman told KETV. “He always took the time, you know, he made you feel important. And that’s hard to find sometimes in the military.”
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen on Wednesday ordered U.S. and state flags flown at half-staff until the evening of Tietjens’ burial. State lawmakers held a moment of silence Wednesday to honor the fallen soldier.
“Noah stepped up to serve and defend the American people from foreign enemies around the world — a sacrifice we must never forget,” Pillen wrote in a tribute Tuesday.
“We are holding the Tietjens family close in our hearts during this unbelievably difficult time and will keep them in our prayers,” he said.
Tietjens’ cousin Kaylyn Golike asked for prayers, especially for Tietjens' 12-year-old son, wife and parents, as they navigate “unimaginable loss.”
“We lost a brave soldier this weekend and many hearts are broken,” Golike wrote on Facebook Tuesday.
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Boone contributed from Boise, Idaho, and Toropin from Washington. Associated Press reporters Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Josh Funk and Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; and David Fischer in Miami contributed.